Patton Oswalt: Werewolves And Lollipops

There’s a number of examples of Patton Oswalt’s immense talent for absurdist description. Here’s how he describes his entire set: “Oh, my penis, wah!” In a way, he’s right.

That talent is what holds the appropriately named (in that it is completely irrelevant) Werewolves And Lollipops together. Announcing he’s drunk immediately after grabbing the microphone, Oswalt spends the next hour leaping from description to description, rarely relying on a joke, but merely telling stories in the same way your best (also drunk) friend would about some dumb experience they had wherever.

Yet with Oswalt, it’s not always wherever. Sometimes it’s at movie premieres, or punch-up meetings or four-star restaurants. Other times, small towns, bad neighborhoods or planned parenthood buildings. Of course, the stories go beyond just the places; his description of birth is witnessing an “uncooked Cornish game hen being pushed through grey drapes.” As gag- inducing as that is, it’s only a tiny sample in the larger, adjectival world Oswalt creates at a constant, unyielding pace, keeping the story funny for minutes on end.

That said, the English-major beer-buddy style that Oswalt inhabits is very much in a time period and a crowd—that is, his, and that is, hip. Certain jokes will just plain be lost on the out- of-step audience. Matter of fact, he unleashes quite possibly the longest and most brutal heckler attack imaginable (with the obvious exception of Bill Hicks) on a guy who shouts in the middle of a quiet part of his set. “You’re going to miss everything cool and die angry.” Wow. Part of his vehement mocking of the poor dolt is even self-referential: “I gonna be a douchebag forever! I’m getting burned onto a CD for eternity being a douchebag!”

If that’s what you think of people who shout “Slayer!” and “Freebird!” at shows, this one’s for you. Also, DVD.